Friday, February 25, 2011

Allow me to apologize in advance for this segment of Know Your LGBT History because I have a feeling that it will offend a lot of folks.

But today's clip is a good reason why I began these posts a while back. A lot of young folks know Glee, TransAmerica, Brokeback Mountain, and The Kids Are Alright. But many of them don't know the road that the lgbt community traveled to get positive portrayals of ourselves on television and in the movies. A lot of these young folks aren't aware of the controversy caused by that awful film Cruising in the early 80s or why The Killing of Sister George received an X rating when it came out in the 60s.

The lgbt community have fought very hard for our public dignity. And as recent incidents show (i.e. that awful SNL skit attacking the transgender community), we still have a long way to go. But still, it's a long way from where we were when the following came out:

Never Too Young To Die (1986) was a hideous movie with a terrible plot. All you need to know is that John Stamos is fighting to save the world from the evil mastermind who murdered his secret agent father.

And this criminal mastermind is Van Ragnar, an intersexed rock star-cum- showgirl out to poison the world's water supply.

Just awful. By the way, the female interest in this movie was played by former Prince protege Vanity (Denise Matthews). Matthews is now a Christian minister.

After a movie like this, I would have hands laid upon me too. The following clip features the "best" of Gene Simmons as Van Ragnar played to the song Ladies Room:

Mike Huckabee has attacked lgbt families again. This is what he said recently on CNN:

"I believe that we're in denial about potential problems as we see more and more homosexual couples raising families. Essentially, these are experiments to see how well children will fare in such same-sex households. It will be years before we know whether or not our little guinea pigs turn out to be good at marriage and parenthood."

Personally, I think the only person dealing with denial problems is Huckabee. If he had any true questions regarding same-sex households, there are a plethora of studies out there which prove that same-sex households don't pose a danger to children.

But let's be honest there. Huckabee has no interest in educating himself on same-sex households.

No matter how nice he tries to make them seem, they still add up to ignorant homophobia of the highest level (yes I know I am using an oxymoron but it best describes the depths that Huckabee stooped to in this attack).

Cliff Kincaid is one of the American far right’s most energetic and obsessive propagandists. For more than 30 years at Accuracy in Media (AIM), a right-wing outfit opposed to the “liberal” media, Kincaid has cranked out reams of material — rife with innuendo and speculation but light on facts —aimed at buttressing his far-right, xenophobic and homophobic views.

Regarding the lgbt community, SPLC had this to say about Kincaid:

He has blamed gays for corrupting the military and making America more vulnerable to terrorism. He says the “pro-homosexual media” has created the false perception of “overwhelming public support” for repeal of the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. “Establishment journalists,” he has written, “are aligned with academia” (“sexual perverts masquerading as scholars”) in supporting transgendered individuals — “a cruel hoax to undermine the already shaky foundation of the traditional family.” He can’t contain his rage at the Republicans for not expelling gays from their ranks, titling a recent article, “Is the GOP becoming the Gay Old Party?” And he has been one of the staunchest defenders of a draconian proposed law in Uganda that would impose the death penalty on large numbers of gay men — a proposal so radical that even many hard-line U.S. anti-gay groups have felt constrained to denounce it. To Kincaid, the proposed law seems merely “designed to send a message to … the foreign homosexual lobby to keep their hands off Uganda’s families and kids.”

Kincaid has taken his anti-gay message on the road recently, participating in an August conference put on by the hard-edged Americans for Truth about Homosexuality where he promised to expose “gay influence on the media” and “the homosexual drive for the ‘right’ to donate possibly infected and contaminated blood to the nation’s blood supply.”

Believe it or not, there is worse stuff in the article regarding Kincaid's "crusade" against the lgbt community, including his bad attempt at smearing Obama appointee Kevin Jennings as a pedophile; a crusade which backfired in his face.

The article sounds like there may very well soon be a new addition to SPLC's list of anti-gay hate groups.

And based on Kincaid's past behavior, it would be a welcomed addition.

About Me

Alvin McEwen is 46-year-old African-American gay man who resides in Columbia, SC.
McEwen's blog, Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters, and writings have been mentioned by Americablog.com, Goodasyou.org, People for the American Way, PageOneQ.com, The Washington Post, Raw Story, The Advocate, Media Matters for America, Crooksandliars.com, Thinkprogress.org, Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish, Melissa Harris-Perry, The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell, Newsweek, The Daily Beast, The Washington Blade, and Foxnews.com.
In addition, he is also a past contributor to Pam's House Blend,Justice For All, LGBTQ Nation, and Alternet.org. He is a present contributor to the Daily Kos and the Huffington Post,
He is the 2007 recipient of the Harriet Daniels Hancock Volunteer of the Year Award and the 2010 recipient of the Order of the Pink Palmetto from the SC Pride Movement as well as the 2009 recipient of the Audre Lorde/James Baldwin Civil Rights Activist Award from SC Black Pride. In addition, he is a three-time nominee of the Ed Madden Media Advocacy Award from SC Pride.